I've spent almost my entire career as a journalist covering tech in and around Silicon Valley, meeting entrepreneurs, executives and engineers, watching companies rise and fall (or in the case of Apple, rise, fall and rise again) and attending confabs and conferences. Before joining Forbes in February 2012, I had a very brief stint in corporate communications at HP (on purpose) and worked for more than six years on the tech team at Bloomberg News, where I dived into the financial side of tech. Before that, I was Silicon Valley bureau chief for Interactive Week, a contributor to Wired and Upside, and a reporter and news editor for MacWeek. The first computer game I ever played was Zork, my collection of now-vintage tech T-shirts includes a tie-dye BMUG classic and a HyperCard shirt featuring a dog and fire hydrant. When I can work at home, I settle into the black Herman Miller Aeron chair that I picked up when NeXT closed its doors. You can email me at cguglielmo@forbes.com.

Keeping you in the loop on some of the things happening around Apple this week, which were fueled in large part by Apple CEO Tim Cook’s making the media rounds in New York.

Ashton Kutcher as a young Steve Jobs in the new biopic jOBS. (Image courtesy of the Sundance Institute)

Transparency. As part of a new era of transparency, Cook gave separate interviews to NBC’s Brian Williams and BloombergBusinessweek, offering his take on a variety of topics. They include his recent firing of two top executives (they weren’t ‘collaborative’ enough), and the debacle over the company’s Maps app (‘We screwed up’), Android tablets and (“We’re… marrying hardware, software, and services. If you think about Android, it’s more like the Windows PC model.”) While Cook spoke on a wide-range of topics, including how he misses his friend Steve Jobs and how no one should “bet against us,” I still had a few follow-up questions I’m hoping he’ll answer while he’s in such a talkative mood. Feel free to add your own.

Made in the USA. Perhaps the biggest news out of Cook’s comments was that Apple will spend $100 million next year to bring “some production” of its Macintosh computer back to the U.S. next year. Analysts said it’s largely a symbolic move since more than 90 percent of Apple’s products are made overseas, particularly in China by partners including Foxconn, Quanta Computer and Pegatron. And while a $100 million is admirable, it’s a drop in the bucket to Apple, which raked in more than $156 billion in sales in 2012. Still, Apple’s ‘insourcing’ initiative could compel other companies to follow suit and transfer production to the United States over the next few years,” said analyst Craig Stice at IHS. But don’t expect a return of the hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs that have shifted overseas. Cook told Businessweek that Apple doesn’t have “a responsibility to create a certain kind of job… I think we have a responsibility to give back to the communities, to pick ways that we can do that … and not just in the U.S., but abroad as well.” He also told NBC’s Williams that the manufacturing savvy needed to make Apple’s products is no longer in the U.S.

And by the way, while Cook didn’t say which Mac it will make in the U.S., the bet is on the Mac Pro, it’s high-end desktop. Apple said in June that it would update the Mac Pro – long in need of an overhaul – in 2013. And since it doesn’t sell a lot (the iMac is its top-selling desktop), and since Mac Pro customers are more likely to ask for specialized configurations (more memory, hard drives), it make sense to build them here. After all, their build-to-order iMac are already assembled in the U.S.

Hello T-Mobile. In an otherwise run-of-the-mill press release about stepping up its capital expenditures and raising its dividend, T-Mobile added this sentence at the end of the fourth paragraph: “T-Mobile USA has entered into an agreement with Apple to bring products to market together in 2013.” Even though it’s a little late to the iPhone game in the U.S. – AT&T, Verizon and Sprint are already suppliers – it’s good news for T-Mobile, whose COO Jim Alling said last month that not being able to offer the iPhone has been “a point of churn for us.” And of course, it’s nothing but good news for Apple. Analysts say that T-Mobile could sell 4 to 5 million iPhones in the first 12 months after offering it to subscribers. That would add 60 cents to earnings per share, said RBC Capital Markets. And if T-Mobile sells 2 million iPads and iPad minis, that would add another 25 cents, said RBC analyst Amit Daryanani.

Samsung patent saga continues. Apple and Samsung lawyers, who faced off against each other this past summer over a patent dispute related to the designs of the iPhone and iPad, meet up in court again this week. It was all about the $1.05 billion the jury awarded to Apple. The post-trial motions being argued included whether the jury’s billion dollar award to Apple should be dismissed, whether Apple should get an additional $535 million in damages, whether there should be a new trial because of juror misconduct by the jury foreman and whether more than two dozen Samsung products, including models of its best-selling Galaxy smartphone and Tab tablet, should be pulled off the market. Judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the case in federal court through most of August, once again asked for “global peace” from the two sides, who are battling in courtrooms around the world. How likely is that? I’d say about as likely as world peace this holiday season. Koh told the lawyers that she’ll issue her findings in “installments” starting in coming weeks rather than in one “omnibus ruling.” Not up to speed on the case? In a nutshell: Apple says ‘You copied our designs.’ Samsung says ‘We did not.’ Plenty of background on the U.S. case can be found starting here.

The “Steve Jobs” patent gets a no-go. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ruled the “Steve Jobs” patent – so-called because he’s listed as the main inventor – tentatively invalid, according to Florian Mueller of Foss Patents. U.S. Patent No. 7,479,949 (’949 ) covers many of the multi-touch features at the heart of iOS, including scrolling. It describes “a touch screen device, method, and graphical user interface for determining commands by applying heuristics.” While Steve Jobs’ name appears as the lead on many Apple patents, most of his other patents are design patents and Apple’s own lawyers have called this the “Steve Jobs patent,” Mueller noted. While this is a tentative ruling that can be appealed, the USPO rejected all 20 of Apple’s claims. “I have said on various occasions that first Office actions and other non-final Office actions are just preliminary. Many patent claims that are rejected at this stage do ultimately survive,” wrote Mueller. “But it would be a mistake to underestimate the significance of a first Office action. Also, a complete rejection of all claims of a given patent is potentially more devastating than one affecting only some claims… If you’ve previously read my comments on the ’949 patent, you may have noticed that I never liked it because it seeks to monopolize the right to solve a problem as opposed to a specific solution.”

The Apple stock roller coaster. Apple’s stock, which hit a record $705.07 in intraday trading back on Sept. 21, has been hammered in recent weeks. There’s all kinds of theories about why. The big one is that investors are concerned that new products, which are more expensive to produce, and lower-priced gadgets (like the iPad mini and a possible lower-priced iPhone) will eat into Apple’s profit margins. There’s also concern Apple won’t be able to make enough new iPhone 5’s to meet demand (although most analysts believe the supply issues have been sorted out). There’s also the fiscal cliff stuff – that investors have been selling off their shares now to enjoy the current capital gains tax because that tax might more than double next year. Last, but not least, there’s concern about whether Apple will have a new big thing in the near future. Cook wasn’t asked about a possible deal for the iPhone with China Mobile in his recent media interviews. Investors see that deal as Apple’s next big thing. As for a smart TV, Cook gave a hint but nothing more than that, telling Brian Williams that “It’s a market that we see that has been left behind…It’s an area of intense interest. I can’t say more than that.” Apple’s shares, by the way, closed Friday at $533.25.

jOBS goes to Sundance. jOBS, the movie about the Apple co-founder’s early years and starring Ashton Kutcher, will close the Sundance Film Festival in January. I got a page of the script (read it here) back in June when they were filming at the “Apple garage” – the Jobs’ family home and the place where he and co-founder Steve Wozniak started their personal computer company in the heart of Silicon Valley. No word on when it will hit theaters. The Sundance Institute did release of photo of Kutcher in character as Jobs. Don’t know how the movie will play, but he does look the part.

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